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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
This book has some beautiful and poetic writing, but I found myself wanting to skip over sections. I'm honestly not sure I understood the entire book.
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
[5 stars]
"But to be undead is to be superfluous, perpetual. The moon is always full. We dream without sleeping. We refuse to return to the earth. Hunger is relentless"
A slow, somber thing following a woman after she has turned into a zombie. She is currently living with a group of other zombies, she (and everyone around her) is haunted by the memories of people they loved in life who they now just can't quite remember, and her arm just fell off.
This is not a thriller or a horror novel or anything of that sort. This is a slow, introspective novella looking at a woman in the afterlife as she wanders the nearly-dead Earth and thinks about her life in respect to it. After the beginning, barring two short parts, there is very little dialogue between our MC and other characters. I think this works well for what the novella is. We are given time to live and walk and think and grieve with her. We viscerally feel her solitude and grief and hunger and melancholy in real time with her. It is an incredible and thought-provoking experience.
This is one of those books where my entire review could be quotes from the book. It is genuinely one of the most beautifully written novels that I have ever read. Most books that attempt this introspection subject end up trying too hard. "Purple prose" and all that. This book is nothing like that. Every line is necessary and inspired and beautiful. Every metaphor and her use of imagery is genuinely fresh and so evocative. It does not get lost in itself, either. It will be segments of the MC doing something, walking to a new place or thinking about an interaction that she just experienced, and then it is book-ended by her reminiscing and thoughts regarding that. It feels slightly formulaic at time, but it never falters or fails to impress. This is the first that I have read of de Marcken and I am so utterly impressed.
I struggle to voice how much this story affected me. The role of grief and longing is so visceral throughout that I felt everything alongside the MC. Every scene and revelation about her and her lover in their life was so real and it hurt. You experience the afterlife alongside the MC every step of the way.
"Things in rows and ranks are mournful. Trees planted to pulp. Soldiers or their gravestones. Multiplicity and order reveal sameness and variation. The limitations of our individuality. That we can be felled."
"I wanted to grieve while I still had to solace of you...The end of the world happens so quietly. Things as large as glaciers are so quiet."
"But to be undead is to be superfluous, perpetual. The moon is always full. We dream without sleeping. We refuse to return to the earth. Hunger is relentless"
A slow, somber thing following a woman after she has turned into a zombie. She is currently living with a group of other zombies, she (and everyone around her) is haunted by the memories of people they loved in life who they now just can't quite remember, and her arm just fell off.
This is not a thriller or a horror novel or anything of that sort. This is a slow, introspective novella looking at a woman in the afterlife as she wanders the nearly-dead Earth and thinks about her life in respect to it. After the beginning, barring two short parts, there is very little dialogue between our MC and other characters. I think this works well for what the novella is. We are given time to live and walk and think and grieve with her. We viscerally feel her solitude and grief and hunger and melancholy in real time with her. It is an incredible and thought-provoking experience.
This is one of those books where my entire review could be quotes from the book. It is genuinely one of the most beautifully written novels that I have ever read. Most books that attempt this introspection subject end up trying too hard. "Purple prose" and all that. This book is nothing like that. Every line is necessary and inspired and beautiful. Every metaphor and her use of imagery is genuinely fresh and so evocative. It does not get lost in itself, either. It will be segments of the MC doing something, walking to a new place or thinking about an interaction that she just experienced, and then it is book-ended by her reminiscing and thoughts regarding that. It feels slightly formulaic at time, but it never falters or fails to impress. This is the first that I have read of de Marcken and I am so utterly impressed.
I struggle to voice how much this story affected me. The role of grief and longing is so visceral throughout that I felt everything alongside the MC. Every scene and revelation about her and her lover in their life was so real and it hurt. You experience the afterlife alongside the MC every step of the way.
"Things in rows and ranks are mournful. Trees planted to pulp. Soldiers or their gravestones. Multiplicity and order reveal sameness and variation. The limitations of our individuality. That we can be felled."
"I wanted to grieve while I still had to solace of you...The end of the world happens so quietly. Things as large as glaciers are so quiet."
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Quirky, dystopian, novella. Interesting and intellectually stimualating writing, engaging despite sometimes feeling downright odd. Glad I read it, would recommend if you're looking for something entirely different that you're not really going to be able to 'figure out' or predict. Contemplates life, love, defining home, and how people evolve.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“The apple tree and plum tree are bare as the old women we will not be together. They hold each other.”
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne De Marcken. This was a terrific read. It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over is a meditation on what it means to be alive from the perspective of an unnamed undead narrator who has retained some of her sense of self after succumbing to the zombie apocalypse. De Marcken’s enchanting prose drained my pens as I underlined passage after passage - she is both tremendously playful and cuttingly insightful as her character navigates this brutal dystopia chasing after her fleeting memories of her former self that have been lost to the ravages of the end of the world. I love stories that just hop right into the action - this book doesn’t waste time explaining how and why this all happened but instead focuses on the loss, loneliness, and grief that follows. De Marcken’s protagonist is both dead but incredibly alive, lost but found, and has more to say about life than many of us who are living. I devoured this book - I stopped myself from reading the last ten pages last night just to spend an extra day with it. Check this one out - you will not be disappointed. Highly Recommended.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I don't know what to say about this book other than I loved it. I went in blind, having picked it up after reading the first page and leaving the shop with it. It's cold. It's warm. It's everything I wanted and needed at this moment and I wish I could read it for the first time again.
Now I need a crow and someone to talk to about this book.
Now I need a crow and someone to talk to about this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Grief
I didn’t know what to expect from this book but I didn’t expect to love it, yet here we are.